


Moving Pictures

by red_starshine



Series: Moving Pictures [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Dimension Travel, False Identity, Fix-It, Gen, Mind Control, WandaVision Pietro Maximoff is X-Men Peter Maximoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29575518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_starshine/pseuds/red_starshine
Summary: She doesn't look right.She's the same age as Wanda, his twin sister, like the oppressive voice in Peter's head keeps telling him, but her face is different. Close, but not quite there. He'd never seen his Wanda look this distraught.
Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: Moving Pictures [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200824
Comments: 63
Kudos: 487





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Usually I'd wait to post something this speculative until all the episodes were out, but I decided I like it enough to post it as is, even if it turns out to be completely wrong. (Episode 7 has just released as I'm posting this.)
> 
> The title is from Rush's 1981 album - Quicksilver wears the tour shirt for Moving Pictures in X-Men: Apocalypse.

She doesn't look right.

She's the same age as Wanda, his twin sister, like the oppressive voice in Peter's head keeps telling him, but her face is different. Close, but not quite there. He'd never seen his Wanda look this distraught.

He can tell as he's standing in the door of her house that she realizes that he's not her twin, not really. More like a funhouse mirror version of her actual brother.

Peter has no idea what had happened, how he'd gone from the School to here, where 'here' was, or why this woman who wasn't really his sister was staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.

Then he sees her visibly smother her confusion, embracing the lie. She gasps softly.

**< you are pietro maximoff. this is your twin sister, wanda. you love your sister but you haven't seen her in years. console her.>**

The necklace he's apparently wearing pulls tight and heavy around his throat, like it's slowly choking the life out of him. But he can't rip it off, he can't do anything except what he's supposed to do, so all he can do is stand there. Words come out of his mouth without conscious thought: “Long lost bro get to squeeze his stinkin' sister to death or what?”

For some reason, he's got a heavy New Jeresey accent now, which, if he ever gets his hands on whatever is forcing him to act out Full House with this bizarro-world version of his sister, he'll pants them at super-speed just for that

“Pietro?” Wanda whispers, her eyes bright. She's moments away from crying.

' _No, my name's Peter_ ,' he wants to say. ' _What the hell's going on_?' All he can manage is a slight turn of his head, the smile slipping from his face slightly.

**< play your role. you are pietro maximoff.>**

The necklace tightens around his throat, apparently in retaliation.

**< you are pietro maximoff. pietropietropietro-->**

Peter swallows. The Professor had shown him and the other non-telepathic mutants what to do if faced with someone with the power to control minds by walling off your thoughts to protect them from intruders. This wasn't anything like the training they'd done. The thoughts pressing down on Peter now are almost overwhelming, coming from all sides. It's only his middling little wall that keeps them from crushing him entirely. It's not strong enough to force whoever's controlling him out of his head.

Wanda steps forward, embracing him. He returns the hug automatically. And it's strange, when he's not looking directly at her face and reddened eyes, how easy it is to slip into thinking this woman is the Wanda he grew up with.

Peter's Wanda, the sister he knew, always kept to herself. If she had developed any mutant abilities, she'd hidden them away. Like Peter, she'd typically hole up in her room most of the time when they were growing up and he'd often go days without seeing her. She'd gone off to UVA on a full ride scholarship after high school while he'd stayed down in their mother's basement stealing truckloads of Twinkies and stereo equipment, and he'd barely heard from her since. They weren't estranged, but they'd never been particularly close either and their lives had taken them in opposite directions. His actual twin sister would probably not cry tears of joy at being reunited with him, which makes it all the more weird that alternate Wanda was, and she didn't even call him by the right name.

Even though he really doesn't want to, he feels a pang of sympathy for her. Something really bad must've happened to her brother. That haunted look she'd given him when she'd first opened the door was definitely one that screamed ' _I thought you were dead._ '

Or maybe, ' _You're not my brother. My brother is_ _dead_.'

His not-sister was married to a red android wearing a white dress shirt and suspenders. He gets the impression that's pretty strange, even for wherever this place is, but it'd be more shocking to Peter if he didn't live in a school full of mutants. 

“Who's the popsicle?” Peter asks when Wanda pulls away, gesturing towards her red android husband.

Apparently even mind-controlled, he's still an annoying little shit.

* * *

Wanda makes up the living room sofa for him to crash on, apologetic that she can't offer him the guest room. It's now Billy and Tommy's bedroom – Wanda and Vision's twin boys, so Peter's not-nephews. She gives Peter pajamas to change into for the night, easily conjuring them out of thin air.

' _That's not right_ ,' Peter thinks even as he smiles and takes them. He knows mutant powers can be kind of weird, like teleportation and telepathy, but they have to at least flirt with known science. Creating something out of nothing, warping reality like that, was at the upper limits of mutant abilities and verging into the mystical stuff that nobody really had a clue about.

What exactly _was_ Wanda, a mutant or something else?

Wanda tells him with a tired smile that they'll catch up tomorrow, and then she and Vision disappear upstairs, suspicion and tension still rolling off the two of them. He gets the feeling he interrupted something. Or whatever dropped him outside not-Wanda's house did, probably intentionally. There's a lot going on here that he's unaware of, he's guessing.

The voices in his head telling him what to say abruptly switch off as soon as Wanda's out of sight, and for the first time since he entered Wanda’s house, Peter feels slightly more in control of his own body. He’s alone in the living room, still holding the neatly-folded magic (?) pajamas.

Peter changes in the bathroom, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor next to the tub. He's never seen any of them before, although the black jacket looks just enough like one he owns that Peter's gaze lingers on it for a moment before he turns away, trying to push down the pang of homesickness in his chest. The pajamas Wanda gave him were pale blue and soft, with a button down top and pants. They fit him perfectly, which maybe isn't that surprising with magic pajamas.

Peter stares into the bathroom mirror, his hands clutching at the sides of the sink. He'd left the top button of his pajama shirt undone, exposing the string of beads around his neck.

The necklace looks harmless enough – it's mostly white beads with larger brown beads in front. But there's no clasp or knot in the back to remove it, and it's not wide enough to go over his head. Despite how tight it had been around his throat when he showed up at the door, it's loose enough now that he could tear it off, except he can't make himself actually touch it. His hands just won't move to do anything involving the necklace.

With Wanda upstairs, he's less like a marionette getting jerked around and can act mostly under his own power, but the necklace is still off limits.

Peter fights against the block, his fingers digging into the cool porcelain. All he has to do is take the necklace off. His reflexes are incredibly fast, it shouldn't be that hard to do, even with whatever psychic compulsion it's using to control him. It's just one lousy necklace that's in the way of him and free will, he should be able to do this…

But he can't.

After ten excruciating minutes of trying and failing to get his fingers to even brush against the beads, he gives up. Time for Plan B.

Plan B quickly runs into a snag when he discovers that all the doors leading outdoors are locked and refuse to open no matter how hard he pulls on the handles. Peter tries to break down the back door with his speed – at least he's still fast – but there's a quiet, wobbling thud as he hits the door and is sprung backwards into the kitchen hallway instead, like the door's a trampoline and he's the Coyote in a Looney Tunes short.

Peter stumbles in surprise, only barely able to keep himself from falling over. He's not hurt at all from the impact, just indignant. The door's fucking wood and glass; at the speed he was going it should've disintegrated.

He tries again with the front door, only for the same thing to happen. This time he lands on his back, sprawled out on the carpet in front of the stairs, momentarily dazed. As he lies there in his conjured pajamas, staring up at the ceiling, he sighs in defeat.

He can't leave. He's stuck in a crappy sitcom house with his not-sister and her family, something is controlling him and right now, there's nothing he can do about any of it. Not a goddamn thing.

After another moment of feeing sorry for himself, Peter gets up and tries to quickly snoop around instead, to see if he can dig up any information about what the fuck is going on, but to his frustration he doesn't discover much. What's there is thin set dressing that tells him nothing he doesn't already know. There's Wanda Maximoff, the maybe-mutant-maybe-witch who both is and isn't his sister, Vision no-last-name the big red android who can shift into a human form like Raven and their sons who were apparently born yesterday. One big happy family (mostly). And now Wanda's long-lost twin brother, Uncle Pietro, had come to town to stir up trouble.

Wow. He really is trapped in Full House.

Feeling like a lab rat in a maze, he trudges back to the living room sofa, and the pillow and blanket Wanda had created for him. He falls back onto the sofa when the entire house suddenly pitches and rolls like a goddamn bouncy castle, bright red light curling across every visible surface.

Great. Like he hadn't had enough crazy shit happen to him in the last hour.

“Oh come on. What now?” Peter moans and then squeezes his eyes shut as the light grows too bright for him to stand.

When he hesitantly blinks open his eyes again, it takes him a moment to realize he's still in Wanda's house since everything around him has changed. The basic layout of the house is the same, but it had been instantly remodeled by the red light. Even the furniture is different. The sofa he's lying on isn't mustard-yellow velvet anymore, but covered in an ugly plaid pattern. The pillow Wanda made for him had gone from plain white to a dark blue plaid that clashed with the sofa.

He looks down and realizes that whatever magic (it has to be magic, right?) altered the house had an effect on him too, because he can see his bare knees and he's wearing socks again. There's a small mirror near the front door, which replaced the larger mirror in the stained glass frame that'd been there a minute ago, so he pushes himself off the sofa with a grunt. Maybe he'll be lucky and the magic yanked the necklace off him while it was transforming everything else.

Peter's pajamas have turned into an old t-shirt and plaid boxer shorts, because apparently everything is goddamn plaid now. His hair's different too, the silver bleached to a pale blond with darker roots showing. Blond should be a more natural color on him, since not a ton of people his age had gone 100% grey, but it just looks really, really weird instead, like the magic is trying to make him into someone else. Peter's hair had been silver for as long as he could remember, an early sign of his mutation even before he developed his powers.

The stupid mind-control necklace is exactly the same as it was before, still around his throat, still impossible for him to remove.

Fuck. 

As much as he hates to admit it, he's not going to get any answers until morning, when the rest of the Maximoff-Vision household is awake. And the evil magic necklace will probably force him into acting how it wants him to act again in front of his kinda-sister, turning him back into its puppet, which sucked. Everything about this just sucked _so much_.

And yet, even though all this weirdness seemed to point back to Wanda, he couldn't find it in himself to hate her. If she was a mutant, it was possible she was still coming into her powers and didn't know how to control them yet. Or she was hurt and lashing out, and this was her cry for help. There had to be a reason for all of this. Probably not a _good_ reason, but if this Wanda was anything like Peter's sister, her heart was usually in the right place.

Peter wishes that the Professor was here. He could've talked Wanda down easily, and his mastery of telepathy would've been able to protect him from the mind control. But instead she'd gotten Peter, whose mutant powers were running fast and being unable to tell Erik that he was Peter's father for a decade and counting at this point.

Peter laid down on the sofa, wrapping the blanket around himself. His mind wasn't going to be able to settle down enough for him to actually fall asleep, but it's not like there was anything else he could do.

If he does get some sleep, hopefully he won't wake up in the morning with the face of Wanda's actual brother instead of his own.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter's face is the same when he wakes up in the late afternoon, after a fitful night of trying to sleep. The only thing that's changed is that Wanda's house is now decorated for Halloween. He also meets Wanda and Vision's twin ten year old (or one day old) boys, Billy and Tommy, face-to-face. They're bickering next to the sofa when he wakes up.

The necklace gives him some leeway with the twins, more than it did last night around their parents. As long as he tries to act like their fun “Uncle P” around them, it doesn't force words out of his mouth and he's got some control over what he does. Billy still acts a little wary of “Uncle P”, unlike Tommy, who seems to worship him.

When Wanda comes downstairs dressed in her Halloween costume, the voices in his head from last night come with her. The heavy, constrictive feeling wraps around his throat again, stealing his voice, and whatever control he had over his body slips away.

Peter sighs from behind his puny mental wall. Back to being a puppet. Awesome.

He does learn a few things while he's out of the driver's seat: sorta-Wanda and her brother grew up in a country called Sokovia, which isn't actually a place, as far he knows. But typhus was still a thing there, and they both got it as kids. Also, Pietro was this Wanda's only sibling, so Peter's younger half-sisters straight up just don't exist here.

Did Peter get sucked into another dimension? Where this dimension's version of him was dead or otherwise unavailable, and Peter had been dragged in as the understudy? If Wanda can warp reality and isn't great with handling grief, grabbing another version of her dead brother as a replacement makes a certain amount of sense, as well as trying to make him 'play along' that Peter's her actual brother.

He's a little surprised that the voices make Peter call Wanda's Halloween costume “lame”. If she's the one controlling him, why'd she want him to insult her? Just to be a dick? He also makes fun of Vision's costume, which...was something he'd probably do even if he wasn't under a spell. It's pretty bad.

Wanda and Vision awkwardly pretending everything is just fine in front of the twins, when they're still tense from whatever Peter had interrupted last night, is almost painful to watch. Nobody, not even the kids, are fooled. Peter's thankful when the twins drag him away to play video games on the living room TV. 

Peter genuinely likes horsing around with Wanda’s kids. Billy and Tommy remind him of some of the younger kids at the School, the ones still adjusting to their powers that need some cheering up. It's a little reminder of home in a place that's very much not.

When Vision goes off to patrol with the Neighborhood Watch, Peter's not surprised that the necklace pushes him into volunteering to help Wanda look after the boys while they're trick-or-treating. Or that the Halloween costumes he “makes” for himself and Tommy (not that he has any real input in it) are just as bad, maybe even worse, than what Vision left in. At least Vision wasn't running around with Flock of Seagulls hair. Kurt might've been able to pull it off, but definitely not Peter.

* * *

The neighborhood of Westview is just as idyllic and sitcom-ish as Wanda's house; 'a real nice place to raise your kids up'. The fact that no roving bands of teenagers were out TPing trees, egging houses or pulling any pranks right under the Neighborhood Watch's nose was highly suspicious. In fact, there weren't any teenagers out at all, just children in costume and their parents.

Wanda asks him about the orphanage where they grew up after their parents died, and whatever's controlling Peter blatantly dodges the question. “I know I look different...”

“Why do you?” Wanda interrupts, puzzled. “Look different?”

 _'Because I'm not really your brother,'_ Peter thinks.

“You tell me,” is what the voices in his head force out of his mouth with a shrug.

_'Auuugh.'_

After Peter volunteers to help the twins get even more candy and speeds them down the street, away from Wanda, the voices settle down again. They're unfortunately still there, not as quiet as they'd been when he'd been alone last night. He's got partial control over himself again. He hasn't decided if these brief moments of almost-normal are better or worse than if the voices were just commanding him all the time. 

“Uncle P, are you feeling OK?” Billy asks after the fifth house they visit, looking up at him.

_'Not at all.'_

**< yes.>**

So of course what comes out of his mouth is “I'm fine, little dude. Why'd you ask?”

Billy frowns slightly, confused. “It's just...” he trails off, and then scuffs his shoe against the asphalt, looking down. “It's weird,” he mumbles. “Forget it.”

Peter stops. Something big is obviously bothering him. “ What is it? What's weird?” he says with concern. This, at least, is entirely him.

Billy fidgets, doesn't look at Peter when he starts to speak again. “...I hear all these voices inside your head. And they don't sound happy. Like they're...” He glances at Peter and his face tightens slightly, trying not to wince. “Telling you what to do?” he says slowly, unsure. “And you argue with them. Inside your head. Is that normal?”

Peter stares at him in shock and his breath freezes in his chest. Billy has powers too. And his are just like...

“Jean?” Billy tilts his head slightly, confused. “Who's Jean?”

Tommy dashes back to them, a wide grin on his face. “Billy, c'mon! There's a house giving out full-size candy bars over on Maple Street!”

“Hang on a sec,” says Billy. He turns back to Peter. “Are you really okay, Uncle P?”

_'Nope.'_

**< yes. everything is fine.>**

“What? Yeah! Yeah, of course!” Peter hears himself scoff. “Everything's...”

 _'Really bad,'_ he struggles to say, even as the beads tighten around his neck, digging painfully into his windpipe. _'Horrible. SOS. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.'_

“...f-fine,” Peter eventually finishes after an awkward pause, with a forced smile.

Billy looks up at Peter, even more confused than before.

Now that he knows to look for it, Peter can feel Billy poking at the edges of his mind, radiating concern. Billy hasn't honed his telepathy enough to communicate with Peter in words yet, only vague feelings. He's still doing really well for someone who only discovered their powers a few minutes ago.

Luckily, Peter's had lots and lots of experience with telepaths and knows how to open his mind to them. He mentally replays his memories of being controlled around Wanda and Vision, the voices in his head trying to smother his thoughts. He tries to not pass along the fear and confusion he'd experienced to his 'nephew', but he's sure a little seeps through.

Billy's eyes widen. He places a hand on Peter's arm and then closes his eyes, scrunching up his face in concentration. Peter almost asks what he's doing when the voices start to shout at him again.

**< tell him you're all right and continue trick-or-treating. right now!> **

Huh **.** They sound almost panicked.

“I--” Peter starts to say, but stops. There's a rumbling inside his head, growing louder until it becomes a high-pitched shriek, drowning out the voices.

' _Leave my uncle alone_!' Billy screams inside Peter's head, and holy shit, the kid learns fast. It's like something detonated in the middle of Peter's mind, the shockwaves driving out everything that shouldn't be there.

**< stop! sto--> **

The voices shouting in Peter's head waver and then go silent.

Peter holds his breath for a moment, another one, waiting for them to return, but there's nothing telling him how to act or forcing him to say what it wants. They're gone.

For the first time in almost a day, he's in full control of himself.

Peter reaches for the necklace and grips it tightly with both hands. He yanks and the necklace cord easily snaps, beads slipping off and falling to the ground.

“Oh, hell yes,” gasps Peter in a rush, letting his head drop.

Tommy yelps in surprise as the broken necklace cord twitches in Peter's hand, purple light rippling along it. The cord thickens and suddenly Peter's holding a dead black snake.

Peter makes a face and then flings it away into the grass. The dead snake disintegrates when it hits the ground, falling apart into dust.

The three of them stare down at where the snake had been, and then Billy looks up at Peter. “Is that better?” he says.

Peter grins brightly, playfully ruffling Billy's hair. They're both good kids. “Definitely. Thanks, kiddo. I owe you one.”

“Whoa, that was rad, Uncle P. How'd that necklace turn into a rubber snake?” Tommy says.

“Dunno,” says Peter. It definitely hadn't been rubber, but he's not about to tell Tommy that. He takes the twins by the hands. “C'mon, let's go ask your mom. She knows everything.”

“But what about the full-size candy bars?” Tommy says right before Peter runs them back to Wanda.

* * *

Wanda is waiting for them outside the town's two-screen movie theater, where they'd promised to meet once they finished the houses on the north end of Westview. She's watching the other families and their children walk along the streets with a wistfuly sad expression on her face.

Peter zips up to Wanda and drops off Billy and Tommy in front of her. He dashes back towards the stores lining Westview's main street before Wanda or her boys can realize he's no longer with them. First things first, he's ditching this costume.

The Professor had discouraged Peter from shoplifting anything while he lived at the mansion “to avoid giving the younger mutants who look up to you the wrong impression about proper use of their abilities”, but in this case, he didn't have any other options.

“Sorry, Professor,” Peter mutters as he approaches the local department store – and then he's past the doors, careening through both floors, selecting what to take.

Still, he decides against stealing one of the expensive portable CD players or “MP3 players” (whatever those are) from the store's electronics department. Instead, he takes a silver Walkman and one of the few cassette tapes lingering in the music section at random. He's never heard of the Dandy Warhols. Maybe they don't exist in his dimension. Shrugging, he pops the tape into the Walkman.

Dressed in a grey jacket and dark jeans, with the Walkman clipped to his belt, a pair of goggles protecting his eyes, and all that gel combed out of his hair, Peter feels surprisingly calm as he cracks his neck, puts on the headphones and then [presses down on the Walkman's play button](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq4jty8Y0mY) before he zips out of the store, still moving at super speed.

Peter runs back towards the movie theater with the jangly music blaring in his ears. He zig-zags like a pinball between the frozen families still trick-or-treating and wall-runs along the front of the store buildings. He's free, nothing controlling him and no voices shouting in his head. Each step is one _he_ decides on, everything is all his choice.

_'Anytime,_   
_Baby, let's go_   
_Every day should be a holiday.'_

Peter lets out a laugh, a wide smile on his face.

Whatever happens next, at least he's himself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Peter listens to on his Walkman is ['Every Day Should Be A Holiday' by the Dandy Warhols.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq4jty8Y0mY)
> 
> Other 90s/early 00s songs considered for that scene:  
> 'Walking In My Shoes' by Depeche Mode (I love Depeche Mode, but it was too depressing for a happy scene)  
> 'Ray of Light' by Madonna (a little on the nose)  
> 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi (a lot on the nose)


	3. Chapter 3

“Hi Wanda,” Peter says with a grin as he skids to a stop in front of her, taking off the Walkman's headphones. He raises the goggles from his eyes, resting them on top of his head. “Twinkie?” He drops a wrapped Twinkie into her hands without waiting for an answer, and then two more into Billy and Tommy's candy pails. Not that Wanda knows it yet, but it's an olive branch. Anyone who gives you Twinkies can't be a bad person.

Coming back to Wanda wasn't really the smartest thing to do after regaining control of himself. Getting as far away from her as he could probably was, but hey, nobody said Peter was the brains of the X-Men.

“Pietro!” Wanda gasps in surprise at his (to her) sudden arrival. “I told you not to scare me like that!” She lightly shoves his arm, and then glances down at Peter's new outfit, a small crease forming between her eyebrows in confusion. She doesn't seem to even notice the necklace is gone, which is...interesting. “Oh, are you done trick-or-treating already? It's not even close to curfew yet.”

Billy and Tommy immediately shake their heads.

“Are you kidding, Mom? There's still a couple streets we haven't hit yet!” Tommy exclaims, unwrapping the Twinkie.

“I just wanted to get out of that costume,” Peter explains with a shrug. “Decided that it wasn't me.”

“Oh,” says Wanda, seemingly thrown. She makes a twisting motion with one hand and the Twinkie she's holding disappears with a barely-audible ' _ping_ '. “Thanks, Pietro. I'll save it for later, so _I don't get a tummyache_ ,” she says pointedly to her sons.

Neither of them seem to pick up on it. “Mom, it was sick! We got so much candy, and then Uncle P's necklace turned into a snake!” Tommy says, muffled by the half-eaten Twinkie in his mouth. Billy doesn't say anything as he nibbles at his Twinkie. He still looks a little shaken by the experience of exorcising the voices from Peter's head.

“Tommy, sweetie, don't talk with your mouth full,” Wanda lightly chides, although she apparently heard enough. “A snake?” she repeats after a moment, smiling at Peter. There's absolutely no malice behind it at all. “And here I thought I was the only magician in this family.”

“...I think I'm a telepath,” Billy says quietly, crinkling his empty wrapper.

“Really?” says Wanda, and she beams when Billy nods. “Oh, that's great, honey! I'm so proud of you!” She hugs him.

“ _Mom_!” Billy says, turning red even as he gives a relieved smile. Rolling his eyes, Tommy quickly drags Billy away towards Maple Street and the house with the promised full-size candy bars, leaving Wanda and Peter alone underneath the movie theater's marquee.

Peter leans against the darkened ticket window, eating the last of the Twinkies he swiped, feeling a little like a prisoner with his final meal. When the Twinkie is gone and he can't put it off any longer, Peter takes a deep breath and steels himself. “Hey, Wanda, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Of course,” Wanda says. “Is something wrong, Pietro?”

“Everything's wrong,” Peter sighs. He's doing this. No turning back. “But okay, let's start with that first. I'm not Pietro.”

“All right. Then who are you?” Wanda gives him a teasing grin, looking at his jacket and goggles, apparently deciding it's another costume. “An old-timey aviator?”

Peter chuckles, then shakes his head. “I'm _Peter_ Maximoff. Pietro was actually my mom's grandfather. He was Romani, born in Italy. I'm named after him.”

“Oh come on, Pietro. I think I know what your name is by now,” Wanda says, rolling her eyes. “And all of our family were from Sokovia.”

“ _Your_ family is Sokovian,” Peter says, pointing towards her. “Mine's not. I don't think Sokovia even exists where I'm from.”

“Pietro, you're my twin brother,” Wanda let out a nervous laugh, almost the same as one Peter remembered from his Wanda when they were kids. “It doesn't work like that.”

“Please, just listen to me,” Peter says in a rush. “My name's Peter Django Maximoff, okay? I was born in the US. I-I grew up in a tiny suburb outside of D.C. with my mom and my two sisters. I'm a mutant, like my dad - that's where my super speed comes from. Are you a mutant too?” A thought occurs to him. “Mutants are a thing here, right?”

“What are you talking about?” Wanda scowls, her face darkening. She turns away from him, crossing her arms. “I wish you wouldn't say such silly things. It's not funny.”

“I'm not making fun of you, Wanda,” Peter says. “You _know_ I'm not the Pietro you remember.”

Wanda still isn't looking at him, but her arms slowly drop to her sides.

“I mean, it's like you said before. I don't look like him, right?,” Peter prods gently. “You look different from my Wanda, so I'm guessing that I'm only sorta similar? Because I'm not him.”

“No.” Wanda shakes her head in denial, and Peter's heart sinks. “No. You're Pietro. You...have to be Pietro,” she says flatly. Wisps of flickering red magic start to gather in her gloved hands, like what he'd seen transform the house last night. She slowly raises her head to stare him down and all the emotion drains from her face. “You are _my brother_.” With those words, her hollow eyes shine red too, burning like hot coals.

It's one of the most terrifying things Peter's ever seen.

And she's not exactly wrong. He _is_ Wanda Maximoff's twin brother. It's not like she yanked a random guy in to play the part of Pietro Maximoff in this weird sitcom. Just an alternate version of her brother from another dimension, the closest she could get without raising Pietro from the dead like a zombie.

That the first hard limitation of Wanda's reality bending magic he's seen so far appears to be 'can't bring dead people back to life' frightens him just a little. That was still a _shitload_ of power.

Peter tries to look as non-threatening as possible, but doesn't back away from Wanda. He's _probably_ quick enough to dodge if she starts flinging magic at him, but he's not sure and doesn't really want to test it. If she zaps him, that's it, he's gone. She'll rewrite him into Pietro and no amount of psychic tinkering with his head will bring Peter back again.

“I can't do anything to help if you won't let me be _me_ ,” he pleads. “Don't make me be someone I'm not.”

Something flickers in Wanda's red eyes. The red magic is still hovering near her hands, but she doesn't move to do anything with it, which seems like a good sign. Maybe he can try to talk her down.

Ha. That's a good one.

Peter is so massively out of his depth right now it's not even funny. He's never been great at having heavy, emotional conversations – otherwise he wouldn't have put off telling Erik for over ten goddamn years that he was Peter's father. Now Peter's life literally depended on him having a meaningful heart-to-heart with an upset reality-warper without running his mouth.

He swallows thickly. No pressure or anything.

“I-I can't replace Pietro. Nobody can. But, I want to help you, Wanda,” he says, and means it. “I'm only kind of your brother, but that also means you're sort of my sister.” He pauses and then winces. Could've phrased that better. “Look, I know that doesn't make any sense, but...”

“Help me? How? Everyone I love is gone,” rasps Wanda, suddenly speaking with a heavy accent. Sokovian, probably? “I chased after revenge for my parents' deaths and lost my brother. I felt him die. When I tried to use my powers for good to honor his memory, I only caused more pain and suffering. And then, Vision...” Wanda blinks, the red light fading from her hands and eyes as she stifles a sob, her body trembling as tears run down her cheeks.

She looks lost.

“Why am I not allowed to be happy? To have a family?" she asks. "It doesn't matter what I do, all I am is alone. I have _nothing_.” Her voice cracks on the last word.

Peter's chest aches in sympathy seeing Wanda cry. She reminds him so much of the lonely and grieving Erik who'd become one of Apocalypse's Horsemen, all of the losses he'd suffered overwhelming and consuming him until nothing else mattered. Peter hadn't been able to gather the courage to tell Erik then, to let him know he _wasn't_ alone, but maybe he could help Wanda now.

Combined with everything else he knew, Peter tries to work out what had happened before she had brought him here. His best guess, Wanda had given up on finding any kind of happiness in the real world, so she'd (unconsciously?) constructed her own shiny, happy sitcom world with her reality-bending powers, where any problem could be neatly solved in thirty minutes with commercials. A place where she couldn't be hurt, or lose anyone else she loved. (How Vision or her twins fit into this, Peter had no idea.)

If he was right, that was...so incredibly messed up. God, this poor woman.

Peter makes a decision. It's risky, but he can't just stand here and do nothing while Wanda breaks down in front of him. He may get blown up or mind controlled again, but fuck it, he's willing to try. If it helps her even a little, it'll have been worth it.

He's not afraid of her. Not anymore.

Peter pulls Wanda into a crushing hug. She freezes for a moment, and then crumples against him, burying her face against his shoulder, and openly sobs. She clutches at the back of Peter's jacket like he's the only thing keeping her standing.

Peter lets her cry without saying anything, gently rubbing her back until her weeping gradually begins to subside.

“You're not alone, Wanda. I know for a fact that you've got a brother from another universe,” says Peter, trying to lighten the tension a little. “See? That's something.”

Wanda makes a hiccuping noise that might've been a small laugh, muffled by his jacket, and then pulls away from him. She looks...a little better? It's not like one hug from Peter would magically fix all her problems, but she seems slightly more steady. Not as hopeless, which is a good thing. She wipes at her eyes – all that crying somehow hasn't smudged any of her makeup, it's still sitcom perfect – and then glances up at him with a start. From the surprise on her face, Wanda is seeing _Peter_ for the first time, not Pietro. “You...you're from another universe?” she says quietly. “How is that possible?”

She didn't know? “I think...you wanted your brother back badly enough, you used your powers to find the next best thing,” Peter says, pointing at himself, and then shrugs. “Or that's my best guess, anyway. I don't really have a clue about anything that's going on here?”

“Mom!” Billy shouts in a panic, from the other side of the crowded town square. He sprints towards them, Tommy following behind him. “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

Tommy grabs onto Billy's arm. In a fraction of a second, Tommy's run them both to the theater, leaving a trail of dazed (but not seriously hurt) children he accidentally knocked over like bowling pins behind him.

Peter stares. Tommy's not running as fast as Peter himself can go, but the kid's obviously got super speed.

Tommy's also not slowing down the way he needs to if he's going to stop anytime soon, Peter realizes, which means Tommy and Billy are going to smash through the wall of the movie theater and keep going. And at the speed they're traveling, Peter can't just stop them himself without the risk of injuring them.

Peter lowers his goggles over his eyes. He's going to have to slow them down first.

He uses his own quick reflexes to match their speed and grab onto Tommy and Billy, tucking one twin under each arm, before Tommy can ram himself and his brother through the walls of the theater. The twins' momentum helps him run up the facade of the movie theater, Peter keeping his footfalls light and quick. When he finally starts to feel the tug of gravity again, Peter pushes off from the wall into a backflip. He lands on his feet facing Wanda with the twins still under his arms.

There. A 10.0 landing with two slightly nauseous but otherwise unharmed nephews and minimal property damage. The Professor would be proud.

“That was totally awesome!” Tommy says with a wide grin on his face as Peter sets them both down on the ground. “Is that what it's like for you _all the time_ , Uncle P?”

Wanda's jaw drops, looking at the row of crying, confused children knocked over in the town square, and then to Peter and her twins. “What just happened?”

Peter slides the goggles off and pats Tommy on the head. “Tommy here's got super speed, like me! He just hasn't figured out how to hit the brakes yet,” he tells her.

“Mom!” Billy shouts again.

Wanda instantly switches from grieving reality-bending Sokovian mutant-witch to American suburban mom. “What? What is it, Billy?” Her accent is gone again.

“I- I hear Dad in my head,” Billy pants, trying to catch his breath. “He's in trouble!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **EDIT POST EPISODE 9:** _“It's not like she yanked a random guy in to play the part of Pietro Maximoff in this weird sitcom.”_
> 
> That line aged like milk, didn’t it.
> 
> Anyway, this is now a fix-it fic.


	4. Chapter 4

“Billy, I need you to focus,” Wanda says, and an edge of her Sokovian accent creeps back into her voice. “Where is your dad?”

Billy screws his eyes shut again. “I can't tell. Maybe...near Ellis Avenue? I see these...soldiers.” He shakes his head, and then loudly gasps, his eyes snapping open. He stares up at his mother. “They think he's dying!”

Wanda's lip trembles. It's all the warning Peter has before she turns away from Billy, two red orbs of magic appearing in her hands.

Time freezes, and for once, Peter didn't have to do anything. He, Wanda and the twins are the only ones unaffected. Everything else in the town square is stopped like someone hit the 'PAUSE' button on a VCR.

“Wanda! Wanda, let's go. I can take you to him,” Peter says, grabbing onto her elbow.

She shakes her head and pulls her arm away, not meeting Peter's eyes. “You go. I can't...”

Peter looks at Wanda, then at Billy and Tommy, scared out of their minds for their father. He puts his googles on and slips into super speed, dashing towards Ellis Avenue.

Peter isn't faster than light. He _is_ faster than sound, which is still ridiculously quick by most people's standards, but like he told Raven years ago, for a guy who moves as fast as he does, he always seems to be too late.

Even with time slowed down to a crawl, he's not faster than magic. He runs through the streets of Westview at his highest speed, towards Ellis Avenue, but a red tidal wave of magic radiating from the town square – from _Wanda_ – is rushing towards him.

Peter approaches Ellis Avenue and stares. There's a flickering red barrier, like the staticky lines of a weak broadcast TV signal, in the empty field beyond the paved road. He can't make anything out on the other side.

He slows down slightly. There's something brighter in the middle of the barrier, near the bottom, but he can't se--

Wanda's hurricane of magic punches through Peter and continues towards the barrier. It sucks the air from his lungs as it passes, forcing him to skid to a stop.

Peter flinches, waiting for the voices to return. His hands immediately go to his throat, but there's no necklace there. No voices shouting at him in his head either, no sensation of something crawling along the nerves of his body and taking away control. And he's not thinking of himself as 'Pietro', so he dodged that bullet again.

He looks down at himself. The only obvious thing he can see that's changed is that he's now wearing a faded Pink Floyd shirt, with the art of two mechanical arms shaking each other's hands that'd been wrapped over the sleeve of his 'Wish You Were Here' record. The grey jacket looks a little different but basically the same, the jeans too. He can't feel the weight of the Walkman attached to his belt anymore, but there's something in one of the back pockets of his jeans now, so maybe it just got moved.

He glances up. The flickering red barrier is gone. Where before there was just a dark, empty grassy field on the other side of Ellis Avenue, there's now a large carnival surrounding a ring of bright circus tents lit up with strings of colorful lights. There are people milling around outside the tents, mostly clowns and other performers practicing their acts, but no sign of Vision.

Peter moves to run towards the circus and falls flat on his face into the grass. Something's got his foot. Spitting out dirt, he looks over his shoulder.

A smoky haze of glowing purple magic is wrapped tightly around his left foot and ankle. Before he can try to escape, Peter is lifted into the air, hovering a foot above the ground.

Peter grunts, straining against the magic. He can't move at all.

“Well, well! If it isn't fake Pietro. Very thoughtful of you to come to me. Saves me the trouble of trying to track you down.”

A woman dressed in a witch's black dress and pointed hat gets out of her idling station wagon. She smiles cheerily as Peter's blood runs cold.

He knows that woman's voice. He knows it way too well.

“You're...you were the voices in my head controlling me.” And that's all he can say before the witch's purple magic wraps around his mouth and gags him.

“Uh huh,” says the witch, with undisguised glee. Something drifts out of her car's open window on a cloud of purple magic. A small potted rosebush. “You were really very handy for helping me spy on Wanda! I still don't know how she's doing all this, but...”

The witch yanks out the rosebush from the pot, and then lets go. The uprooted rosebush floats in front of her chest as the witch tosses the pot to the ground. She gives Peter a sinister grin. “...with you, I can find out.”

The witch waves her hand and the rosebush shrivels and curls in on itself, the petals dropping as she infuses it with her magic. She spins it around and begins to braid the withered stems together while chanting a spell. As she chants, the thorns jut out from the stems and lengthen into wicked-looking spikes.

“The problem before was I left you too much free will when I wasn't controlling you,” says the witch conversationally as she works. “That won't be an issue here. Once this little darling's thorns burrow into your neck, you won't be able to even _think_ of doing anything without my say-so.”

Oh god, that sounds so much worse than before.

The witch approaches him holding a braided necklace dotted with jagged thorns. Peter wants to shout for help, but his mouth won't open. He's frozen in place like a statue, only able to watch helplessly as the witch comes closer.

“Say goodnight, Pietro,” says the witch in a sing-song voice.

“Hey!” A man shouts from one of the nearer circus tents, the beam of a flashlight bouncing up and down as he runs towards them. “Hey, you!”

The witch growls, glaring at the approaching man. Her snarl evaporates a moment later, replaced by panic. Peter hears her mutter something under her breath, and then she, her mind-control necklace and her station wagon all disappear in a cloud of purple smoke like a bad Vegas magic act.

Peter collapses to the grass as the witch's magic restraints vanish with her, breathing heavily.

“Are you all right?” says the man, shining his flashlight on Peter's face.

“Been better,” Peter says honestly, squinting against the bright light. He narrowly avoided being brainwashed again, so at least he's got that going for him.

“What are you even doing out here?” the man asks with a slight frown. “We're still setting up. The circus won't open until tomorrow morning.”

' _A witch was trying to put me back under her mind-control spell_ ' probably wouldn't fly, so Peter chooses the other reason. “I was looking for my brother-in-law, Vis,” he says, still trying to slow his racing heart. “He's supposed to be here, somewhere...”

"Well, I can ask around, but I'm pretty sure there's no 'Vis' here," says the man. He tucks the flashlight under his arm, and then offers Peter his hand.

Peter takes it, allowing the man to help pull him up to his feet. When Peter tries to put weight on his left foot, throbbing pain unexpectedly shoots up from his ankle, and he stumbles, taken by surprise. “Shit,” he yelps. The witch had done more damage than he'd thought when she'd grabbed onto his foot. At least she hadn't broken his leg.

The man grabs onto Peter's arm to keep him from falling over. “Looks like you sprained your ankle,” he says mildly. The man sighs, apparently taking pity on Peter, and leads him towards the circus tents. “Come on, I've got a first aid kit in my trailer.”

Peter looks around the circus in confusion. He's never seen so many clowns in his life. Vision is also nowhere in sight, but nobody is screaming about a dead android lying around anywhere, so maybe he's okay now. There are no soldiers around like Billy described either, just the circus. Is Peter in the wrong spot? Where the fuck is Vision?

The man helps him walk towards a ring of small trailers hitched to pickup trucks hidden behind the larger circus tents. He brings Peter to one with a sign reading 'Vinnie S. – Balloon Animals' hanging on the door.

“You're Vinnie?” says Peter.

“Yup,” he says as he helps Peter up the steps into the trailer. There's room for a bed and a small kitchenette and not much else. A small air pump and plastic bags of colorful balloons, along with a large leather pouch to carry the uninflated balloons, are lying on one of the counters. In the light of the trailer, Peter can see Vinnie's wearing a red velvet jacket covered with shiny golden stars, suns and moons, paired with dark blue pinstriped pants and goldenrod-yellow gloves. His costume would probably look utterly ridiculous on almost anyone else but somehow works for him. His hair and goatee are dark, with a few wisps of grey at his temples, even though he doesn't look much older than Peter.

“Have a seat,” says Vinnie, nodding at the bed.

Peter sits down on the edge of the mattress. The Walkman in the back pocket of his jeans digs uncomfortably into his butt, so he fishes it out.

It's not a Walkman anymore. Peter frowns at it. He isn't sure exactly _what_ it is now. It's made of silver aluminum, but there's no door or lid to put a cassette or CD in, and it's too small and thin to fit anything inside anyway. A black wheel of audio controls are on the front below a large screen, so he's reasonably sure it still plays music, but that's it. White plastic earbuds are wrapped round it, replacing the black headphones that'd come with the Walkman. He flips the device over. There's the Apple logo and the word 'iPod' etched on the back, which doesn't tell him much. He slides the "iPod" (what a dumb name) into the inner pocket of his jacket instead so he's not sitting on top of it.

Vinnie tosses Peter a bag of frozen peas from the trailer's mini-fridge. “Put that on your ankle,” he instructs.

Peter slides off his sneaker and wraps the bag of frozen peas around his sore ankle. Vinnie pulls a large first aid kit out from one of the cabinets, pops open the clasps, and then starts rummaging around.

There's a small mirror hanging on one of the walls near the bed. Peter glances in it. His hair's no longer bleach-blond, but back to its normal silvery-grey. It's a small difference, but he's relieved to see it changed back.

“So you like Pink Floyd?” asks Vinnie, inclining his head towards Peter's shirt.

“Yeah, man!” says Peter, perking up. “I got 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and 'Wish You Were Here' when they first came out. They're my favorites. Nearly wore out the records playing them over and over.”

Vinnie chuckles. “You look a little young for that.”

“...what?” Peter had been a teenager when those two records had been released; that had been the perfect age to listen to them!

“Those albums are over forty years old,” says Vinnie. He sits down on the carpet next to the bed with a rolled elastic bandage and several safety pins next to him. “'Wish You Were Here' came out the year before I was born.”

That would've made Vinnie fifteen years old in the year Peter had been yanked from, not the middle-aged man in front of him now. Peter massages the bag of frozen peas on his ankle, and asks, “How old are you?”

Vinnie gently lifts the bag of frozen peas from Peter's ankle and then takes off his sock, checking his foot for swelling. “Forty-two.”

Peter nods without saying anything. He should be shocked. He really should, but he's already accepted he's been yanked out of his own universe. Why _not_ time travel into the not-too-distant-future on top of that?

“I prefer Pink Floyd's early, more psychedelic, albums myself. 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' is my favorite,” Vinnie continues, unrolling the bandage. “I'm not a very big fan of 'The Wall'. Not that it's bad, just less to my taste.” He gently flexes Peter's injured foot back and forth. “Does that hurt?”

There was a small twinge of pain at the movement, but nowhere near what he'd felt earlier. “A little bit. Not as bad as before.”

“That's good,” says Vinnie. “Don't think it's a bad sprain, then. You probably just have to keep icing it and try to stay off it for a few days.” He quickly wraps the elastic bandage around Peter's foot, securing the end with the safety pins. “There. That should do it.”

“Cool. Thanks, doc,” Peter says with a grin as he slides his sock back on over the bandage.

Vinnie suddenly goes very still. “What...did you call me?” he says quietly.

Peter pauses from tying his sneaker's laces and looks at Vinnie, suddenly unsure. “'Doc'?” Was that a swear word in this dimension or something? Had he just insulted the guy?

“Yes, that's right.” A faraway, glazed look enters Vinnie's eyes. “I...am...was? A doctor.” He brings a hand to his temple.

“Uh,” says Peter. Going from doctor to guy who makes balloon animals at the circus seems like a weird career path.

Unless, Peter realizes with dismay, Vinnie's being forced to act out a role too.

Peter hadn't interacted with anyone in Westview outside of Wanda's family other than trick-or-treating with the twins, and the people whose houses they'd visited almost always said something along the lines of “ _What great costumes! Take as much candy as you want_ ,” like they were reading from the same script. Wanda's twins had been born/created a day or so ago; he'd assumed that Wanda's neighbors and the other people he'd seen in Westview were illusions or creations of this reality too, made by Wanda to fill out the town.

Fuck, Peter hadn't even considered that the other people in Westview might be under mind control, too wrapped up in his own problems. Were they _all_ like how he had been, real people who'd been made to play a role in Wanda's sitcom world? That was horrifying.

Peter's not like Billy; he can't telepathically poke around in Vinnie's head to free him if he is under mind control. But the fact that Vinnie can even say that he used to be a doctor has to mean _something_. Peter couldn't even hint that he wasn't actually Pietro to Wanda until after Billy had chased out the witch's influence from his mind.

Maybe all Peter has to do is keep talking to him, and Vinnie'll be able to find his own way out.

“What happened, man?” Peter asks him. “If you're a doctor, how'd you wind up in a circus making funny balloon animals?”

“I don't...No. I remember. There was a car accident,” said Vinnie slowly, like he was in a trance. “That's it. I was a neurosurgeon, and...” His eyes widen, and then he rips off his yellow gloves.

Vinnie's shaking hands are both covered in thick, raised scars, all running along the lines of the bones.

An odd expression passes over Vinnie's face as he stares down at his scarred hands. He stands up suddenly, glancing all around the trailer like he's never seen it before.

“Hey. Vinnie. Stay with me. You okay?” Peter says warily. Vinnie reminds him of a wild animal about to bolt.

“No,” Vinnie shakes his head and starts pacing back and forth in the small trailer. “That's wrong. Vinnie's not my name. Not my real one.”

 _'Where have I heard that before?_ ' Peter thinks with a sinking feeling in his chest. It's a little weird to be on the other side of this conversation so soon after having it with his alternate-dimension twin sister. “All right. Then who are you?” he says, echoing Wanda from earlier.

“I'm...I am...” Not-Vinnie stops abruptly. His posture straightens and he looks at Peter, resolute. He's done it, he's figured out who he is. “Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts.”

Stephen says his full name like Peter's supposed to recognize it, which he doesn't. It honestly sounds way more fake than 'Vinnie'. The guy's last name was 'Strange'? Seriously? “So, you're really a stage magician who used to be a neurosurgeon,” Peter says slowly. “What, do you pull rabbits out of a hat and then charge it to insurance or something?”

Stephen levels a dubious stare at him and then tugs at the lapels of his red jacket. It blurs and lengthens around Stephen, becoming a sweeping red cloak that nearly reaches the floor of the trailer. The clothing underneath shifts into blue robes with a wide leather belt at his waist.

“ _Ohhh_ ,” says Peter, getting it. Stephen does _actual_ magic. “You're like Wanda!”

Stephen's head snaps towards him. “Wanda? Do you know where Wanda Maximoff is?”

“Y-yeah…?” Oops. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. But at least Stephen seems trustworthy. He'd been kind enough to wrap Peter's injured foot even before he remembered he used to be a doctor.

“I have to speak with her immediately,” Stephen says, approaching Peter purposefully. “What she's doing here in Westview is incredibly dangerous. If this stays in place much longer, the barriers between dimensions will start to break down, not to menti--”

Peter can't help it, he snorts. “A little late for that, Doc.”

Stephen looks at him askance. “What do you mean?”

Peter gives him a small wave and a cheeky grin. “Hi. I'm Peter Maximoff. Wanda pulled me here from another universe a day ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more Wanda and Peter alternate-reality-sibling-bonding coming up, promise, but I wanted to introduce this fic's _other_ big divergence from WandaVision canon, Doctor Stephen Strange. I was hoping all the way to the end of episode 9 that he'd actually show up onscreen, but no.
> 
> Peter and Stephen discussing their mutual love of Pink Floyd was fun to write. Obviously, Peter has his 'Dark Side of The Moon' shirt from DOFP, and a little of 'Interstellar Overdrive' plays early on in the Doctor Strange movie.
> 
> I was waffling for a while if I wanted to have Peter come from before or after 'Dark Phoenix' (I never saw it), but I decided in this chapter he was pulled from his dimension before that movie happened. More exactly, he's from 1991 and is 35 years old. (Also, when Stephen says that he's 42 here, he's not counting the five years he was a cloud of dust on Titan.)


	5. Chapter 5

Stephen stares at Peter for a few seconds without saying anything. Stephen's eyes are kind of weirdly pale and intense, and he's not blinking. Peter starts to wonder if he's having an aneurysm, or maybe he's trying to set Peter on fire with his mind. 

“You okay, dude? Did I break you?” Peter asks.

Stephen inhales, holds it, and then lets it out slowly, deliberately trying to calm himself down. “All right. You know what? That's fine,” he grits out in a strangulated voice that says it's very much _not_ _fine_ , but he has more important shit to deal with first.

So does Peter.

“Look, thanks for helping me out with my foot, but I really need to find Vis,” he tells Stephen, standing up from the bed. His injured foot still throbs when it hits the ground, but he can walk on it without every step being misery, so he'll suck it up. “Have you seen any soldiers harassing a red android?” He pauses. “Or a guy painted red in a crappy green and yellow Halloween costume?”

“Vis,” Stephen repeats. “You mean, Vision?”

“Yeah!”

Stephen massages his forehead, looking very, very tired. He yanks back a curtain covering one of the trailer's windows and peers outside. “Vision's in the field,” he says, and then turns to leave the trailer.

Peter follows behind him, confused. “Then where are all the soldiers?”

“Look around you,” says Stephen as he pushes open the door and steps out. He points to the nearest cluster of clowns rehearsing. “When the border expanded, the SWORD camp was absorbed into it. Anything that passes through the barrier surrounding Westview changes to be more fitting for a sitcom, so the military base became a circus, and all the personnel its performers and crew.”

“Gotta say, you don't look military,” Peter says, glancing at Stephen's red cloak, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“I'm not,” Stephen says, then grins slyly. “I was spying on them using astral projection to see what they'd learned about Westview.”

“Really? Cool.”

Vision is lying in the grass curled up on his side about where the barrier Peter had seen earlier had been. His eyes are closed, and he's not breathing, but...android. He probably doesn't need to breathe anyway. At least, that's what Peter's hoping.

Peter zips over to Vision, kneeling down next to him. Vision's wearing a more muted, less goofy-looking version of the Halloween costume he left the house in a few hours ago, like some sort of armored bodysuit. No shiny yellow boxers, but the cape is still there. Peter gently shakes Vision's shoulder. “Vis. Hey.” Stephen stops a little ways behind Peter, silently observing.

Vision's eyes open slowly, taking a moment to fully focus on Peter. “Pietro?” he says a little unsteadily, but not like he's about to die in the next five minutes.

Relief floods through Peter and he smiles at Vision, not bothering to correct him. “You okay?”

“For a given value of 'okay', I suppose I am.” Vision lifts a hand to his face, examining it like he's never seen it before. “Are my children all right?” he asks Peter.

“Yeah, but they're a little freaked out,” Peter responds. “Oh, and they've got powers! Tommy's a speedster and Billy's got telepathy and magic.”

“Good, that's...good.” Vision nods, still dazed.

“What happened?” Peter says as Vision stiffly sits up. “Billy told us you were in trouble.”

Stephen is the one who actually answers him. “Vision tried to leave through the barrier around Westview, but couldn't. The barrier expanded to stop him from completely disintegrating.”

“ _Disintegrating_?!” Peter says in horror. No wonder Billy had been panicking. He'd heard his father screaming in pain as he was _being ripped apart_ inside his head. “Holy shit, dude.”

“I had to try to reach anyone outside of Westview,” Vision says, then looks up at Stephen. “I-I'm terribly sorry, but who are you?”

“Doctor Stephen Strange,” says Stephen. “I saw what happened to you at the SWORD camp. Then the barrier got me and I found myself making balloon animals in the circus back there.”

“The military camp...became the circus?” Vision says, glancing behind him.

“Yes,” replies Stephen. “That barrier's like a bubble of chaos magic surrounding the town of Westview, New Jersey. Whatever or _whoever_ passes through it is changed to fit the sitcom theme that's going on in here.”

Vision closes his eyes at that. “Oh, _Wanda_ ,” he says quietly, disappointed. Then he moves to press a red finger to Peter's temple.

Peter lets him but scrunches his face up in displeasure. Vision touching his head doesn't hurt, it just feels weird. Too cold and tingly. “Uh. What are you doing?” he asks.

“Attempting to free your mind from magical control,” Vision says with a small frown. “But it doesn't appear to be working.”

“Oh! Yeah, no, I'm good,” says Peter. “No mind control on me anymore. Billy took care of that.”

“May I ask what your real name is?” Vision asks, his finger still on Peter's temple.

“Peter Maximoff. I--”

Vision presses down harder, a burst of electricity passing from Vision's fingertip into Peter.

“ _Fuck,_ ow!” Okay, that's enough. Peter dashes away from Vision, stopping next to Stephen and his fancy wizard cloak, too far away for Vision to try electrocuting him again. Stephen twitches when he notices Peter's moved. “What I was _go_ _nna_ _say_ is Wanda pulled me here from another dimension,” Peter says. “I'm a version of her brother from a parallel universe, not a townie.”

“I must admit I find that somewhat difficult to believe,” Vision says slowly, standing up. He peers at Peter with uncertainty. “Are you _sure_ you're not currently brainwashed?”

“I'm fine!” Peter insists.

Stephen rolls his eyes. “Vision, I know you have no idea who I am, but you're just going to have to trust me that the multiverse exists, and Wanda yanking her brother's counterpart out of his own universe to bring him into ours is very possible.” He hesitates. “Incredibly difficult to do without lots of training, but possible.”

“Ah,” says Vision. He turns back to Peter sheepishly. “In that case, I feel I must apologize for both giving you an unnecessary electric shock and for Wanda taking you so far from your home, Peter.”

Peter waves them off. “Wanda bringing me here wasn't intentional,” he responds, remembering the stunned look on her face when he'd told her where he'd come from. “I think she just really wanted her brother here in Westview, and her magic tried to make that wish come true.”

Stephen sighs next to Peter, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, that's not good,” he mutters quietly.

“And you, Doctor Strange? Is your mind your own?” Vision asks.

“I believe so,” Stephen says. “It's possible there's some lingering influence, but I'm not sure how to tell.”

Peter gets an amazing idea. “Stephen, hey, try saying 'fuck',” he suggests. That would never, ever happen in a family-friendly sitcom.

Stephen shrugs. “Fudge,” he says. He sighs, drops his head, uttering “ _Fudge,_ ” again under his breath, and then turns to Vision. “Zap me,” he says flatly.

Vision floats over to Stephen and touches one of his greying temples. Peter steps back as Stephen shuts his eyes and visibly braces himself, tensing his shoulders. There's a spark from Vision's fingers and Stephen jolts. His cloak does too, independently of Stephen, the collar standing up and quivering as the shock goes through it like a cartoon.

“Fuck!” Stephen spits out.

“Sounds like you're good,” Peter says, patting Stephen on the shoulder. Stephen grimaces slightly.

“Doctor, I have a favor to ask of you,” Vision asks. “Can you tell me anything about who I was before this whole business in Westview? Who Wanda was?”

“You really don't remember?” Stephen says, rubbing at where Vision shocked him.

Vision shakes his head. “The first thing I can recall is driving into Westview with Wanda as my bride to our new house. I-I know that I love her dearly, but I can't remember how we even _met_.”

“I can tell you what I know.” Stephen glances back at Peter, realizing that he'll have to be caught up as well, and then sighs. “Let me try to give you two the condensed version.”

Peter listens. Mutants don't exist in this world, or if they do, they're so underground nobody knows about them. Wanda and Pietro's father wasn't Magneto, but an ordinary Sokovian man who loved his children. Peter wonders if Erik was even born in this universe at all, or if he was too wrapped up in mutant-kind to exist in a universe without them.

Pietro also had been able to run at super speed, but it wasn't because he was a mutant like Peter. Nope, it was a lot weirder than that.

The glowing yellow gem in Vision's forehead is the Mind Stone, which was what had given Wanda and Pietro their powers in this universe. Vision was a “synthezoid” that was the combination of a genocidal robot's programming, the remains of another (benevolent) AI's code, and the Mind Stone.

Wanda had to destroy Vision and the Mind Stone when Thanos, a genocidal alien warlord, came to Earth with an army to take it after an earlier invasion of New York City failed. The Mind Stone was the last of six Infinity Stones Thanos needed to complete the Infinity Gauntlet. Destroying the Mind Stone meant the Gauntlet would be incomplete, never reaching its full potential for galactic destruction. Even though she'd loved him with all her heart, Wanda had killed Vision when he'd begged her to by blowing up the Mind Stone with her magic. Vision died to save the universe.

And then Wanda had to watch as Thanos used another Infinity Stone to rewind time, undoing Vision's death, and killing him again by ripping the Mind Stone out of his forehead.

 _Everyone I love is gone,_ Wanda had said. First her parents, then her brother, then her lover (two times, once by her own hand). She'd lost them all, ripped away from her by tragedy.

“What did Thanos do, once he had all the Stones in his possession?” Vision says quietly.

“He snapped his fingers and turned half of all life in our universe to dust,” Stephen answers, his eyes hard.

Jesus, and Peter thought his world was kind of crappy. The best comparison to Thanos he can think of is Apocalypse, and while he and his Horsemen had caused a lot of destruction and death, the X-Men had managed to kill him before he could get started on the real end-of-the-world stuff.

Thanos had destroyed the Infinity Stones afterwards to stop anyone from undoing what he'd done, but the Avengers, the non-mutant equivalent to the X-Men in this universe, had managed to reverse it five years later / three weeks ago, resurrecting the people who'd been dusted like Stephen and Wanda. But not Vision! Vision was still very, very dead.

"You look pretty good for someone who died twice," Peter says to Vision.

Vision frowns. “I don't understand, Doctor.”

“Honestly, I don't either. May I?” Stephen asks, approaching Vision.

Vision nods, and Stephen raises his hand to the gem in his forehead, almost touching it. “As I thought. That's not the real Mind Stone,” he says after a moment. “More like an echo of its power.” He looks thoughtful as he steps back, but doesn't say anything else.

“Me being from another universe doesn't sound so weird now, does it?” Peter says to Vision with a smirk.

Vision sighs. “No,” he admits.

“Oh, hey. Speaking of weird,” Peter says, pulling the silver iPod out of his jacket's inner pocket. “Do you guys know what this is?”

Stephen glances at it. “An iPod.”

That was super helpful. “Okay, but what does it _do_?” Peter clarifies, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“It...plays music?” says Stephen, bewildered. His eyes suddenly narrow in suspicion. “What year is it in your universe?”

“1991,” Peter replies. “This world's a few decades ahead of mine; I figured that out already. But the Walkman I had turned into this when Wanda's magic hit me and I don't have a clue how it works.”

Stephen very quickly shows him how to use the iPod. It's actually really cool, a handheld computer that can store and play thousands of songs. Peter could probably fit the contents of his enormous, carefully curated collection of records, CDs and cassettes onto that one little gadget with room for more. The iPod has about six hundred songs already loaded onto it, and he recognizes some names when he scrolls through the list: Alice Cooper, The Beatles, The Cars, ELO, The Moody Blues, Nirvana, Pink Floyd (of course), Rush, The Yardbirds. There are also lots of bands he _doesn't_ know, probably because they don't exist yet, or never existed at all in his universe.

Peter puts the iPod on shuffle and entertains himself by skipping from 'Fade Away And Radiate' to 'All I Want' to 'Into Your Arms' and then to 'Let It Ride'. He's almost giddy. It's like a magic, nearly-endless mixtape. “This is the best thing ever made,” he announces to Stephen and Vision with a wide grin on his face.

Stephen looks at him with a slight smile, amused, but Vision is staring off towards the houses facing Ellis Avenue, a pensive look on his face.

“Vis?” Peter says, pulling the earbuds out of his ears.

“I had no idea what Wanda had endured before Westview,” Vision murmurs as he begins to rise into the air. “What we both had, I suppose. I should...I need to get home to my wife.”

“Hang on! I'm going with you,” says Peter, placing his goggles back down over his eyes. 

“I am as well. I have to convince her to stop what she's doing here,” says Stephen. His cloak flares out dramatically, and he levitates off the ground until he's level with Vision. He glances down at Peter, the only one of them not able to fly. “You'll be able to get to Wanda's house yourself?”

Peter smirks at him. “Hey, I'll get there before you guys do, even with my sprained ankle.”

Stephen nods, and then he and Vision fly back towards Westview.

Peter puts the white earbuds back in, [hits play on the iPod](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKSUQ9ANoOE), and then lets time slow down around him.

_'And would you cry_   
_If I told you that I lied_   
_And would you say goodbye_   
_Or would you let it ride?'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Peter's listening to at the end is ['Let It Ride' by Bachman–Turner Overdrive.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKSUQ9ANoOE)
> 
> Sorry, no Darcy. I thought about putting her in this chapter somewhere, but since Strange's taken over her role as Doctor Exposition in this fic, she was a little redundant and I was trying to move things along as fast as I could.
> 
> Next chapter: Everything's fine over at the Maximoff-Vision house! Just fine.


End file.
